√ Stem $Ell$: Clinic Marketeers Dangle Big Bucks To Docs

Over the last couple of years the marketing of unproven clinic injections of non-FDA-approved stem cells seems in open-throttle mode.

What used to just be on the web here and there is now on billboards, newspapers, flyers, infomercials, and on TV. It’s possible that millions of dollars are being spent yearly on advertising this stuff, which means far more than that huge amount is being taken in as revenue by clinics and their associated businesses such as marketing firms.

But there’s a different and growing level to this advertising in the form of heavy marketing directly to physicians and chiropractors. Suppliers of unproven “stem cell” products are dangling big dollar signs (literally in some cases) in front of those providers who have practices full of patients who might become customers. The main gist here seems to me to be, “Doctor, you can make a ton of money selling our stem cell product to your patients.”

It’s concerning to me, for instance, to see the aggressive marketing of birth-related or perinatal stem cell products that not only may have questionable if any efficacy but also sometimes can pose serious risks to patients. This is not just hypothetical. In the past year or so, according to the FDA twelve people ended up in the hospital due to contamination of a purported umbilical cord stem cell product with bacteria.

You can see an image above of a postcard with the slogan “Stem $ell$” that a physician recently received. It really doesn’t pull any punches about what the goal is for the sasaran audience of clinic physicians. Money.

I would ask those conducting this kind of “stem sells” marketing more generally, “Does it help the patient?” In my view the answer is “no” and at least to me it seems that helping patients is not the top priority. I hope physicians who are subject to this marketing are also asking themselves if the product is good for the patient.

Note that years ago I had invented a funny stem cell journal called “Stem Sells” in this satirical piece because even back then I thought there was too much marketing of this kind, but today that stem cell clinic related marketing has become far more assertive and ubiquitous.

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√ King 5 Tv Pulls Odd Swedish Medical Regen Med Infomercial Off Youtube

Some unproven stem cell clinics just make things up, but when a big medical organization like Seattle’s largest nonprofit health firm, Swedish Medical Group, has a marketing segment on TV with what in my view are odd and inaccurate claims related to regenerative medicine, the negative impact could be far greater.

Screenshot of Swedish’s Dr. Adam Pourcho talking about what I see as unproven regenerative medicine offerings at the medical group on a sponsored content segment on KING 5. I found some of the claims to be very inconsistent with human physiology and stem cell biology. Maybe I just am ignorant of the amazing ways that things really work?

The segment in question was a sponsored content piece on KING 5 TV, essentially a medical ad for unproven stem cells and regenerative medicine.

In my original post I list what I see as the far-out claims in the video, but to give you a general sense of the assertions, one of them was that your brain sends the “right” kind of stem cells to specific areas of injury in your body so that, for instance, you don’t get eyeballs growing in your injured hand.

Really?

Since my original post, Liz Szabo of Kaiser Health News reported on The Daily Beast that KING 5 had Swedish pull down the video from YouTube, at least in part because it wasn’t labeled as sponsored content.

I highly recommend Szabo’s in-depth article so go take a look. From her piece:

“Although much of the show is produced by the KING 5 news team, some segments—like Pourcho’s interview—are sponsored by local advertisers, said Jim Rose, president and general manager of KING 5 Media Group.

After being contacted by KHN, Rose asked Swedish to remove the video from YouTube because it wasn’t labeled as sponsored content. Omitting that label could allow the video to be confused with news programming. The video now appears only on the KING-TV website, where Swedish is labeled as the sponsor.

“The goal is to clearly inform viewers of paid content so they can distinguish editorial and news content from paid material,” Rose said. “We value the public’s trust.”

Szabo also reported that the physician in question and Swedish both stand by the video still, which you can still find on KING 5 here. For comparison to the Swedish video, watch this sober, balanced video on stem cell orthopedic studies from Dr. Shane A. Shapiro at Mayo (below).

While I’m not a fan of the marketing and clinical use by Mayo of as yet unproven stem cell therapies for orthopedic conditions, they are careful in how they discuss it including important caveats and considerations.

In my view it’s unclear still whether platelet rich plasma or bone marrow stem cell injections are significantly better than the standard of care for various orthopedic conditions, but some orthopedists, sports medicine, and other physicians seem to think one or both might be. I hope additional, strong clinical trials will clarify this.

The Swedish video development reminds me somewhat of the recent Nature ad-article situation. In that Nature case, the sponsored content on a controversial type of stem cells, MUSE cells, was initially published on the Nature website in a way that could be confusing to some readers, who might have thought it was a real, peer-reviewed Nature research article.

The journal later pulled the ad.

It’s unfortunate that KING 5 still has the Swedish sponsored content video up on its site even if it isn’t on YouTube any longer, but it being off YouTube means that fewer patients are likely to see it.

As Szabo rightly points out, more broadly some other large medical firms and universities are marketing unproven stem cells and regenerative medicine. This marketing sometimes is for clinical trials that are still ongoing and have not yet proven the “treatments” in question to work or be safe.

It’s a concerning trend.

Lines are getting blurrier between what’s legit and what’s not, what’s proven and what’s not, in the complex stem cell ecosystem. Patients frequently contact me with questions and are sometimes confused by the marketing out there. In my view, biomedical sponsored content is making things worse.

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√ Wild Stem Cell Ad Piggybacks Off Hyped ‘Interstitium Is New Tissue’ Pub

Screenshot of Union Tribune interstitium stem cell ad.

Last year an odd pub  made the big claim that the interstitium is a new organ. I didn’t buy that.

Now an over-the-top stem cell advertisement that recently ran in the San Diego Union-Tribune (U-T) is piggybacking off of the supposed “interstitium as new tissue” claim to make all kinds of other claims about some mystery “stem cell” pill.

You can see a picture at left of the ad that a The Niche reader sent to me.

The word “cure” there is like a big neon sign translated to “buyer beware.” Yet, “Harvard, Stanford, and Columbia scientists are stunned…”

Really?

The product is called Primal X Plus and the headline suggests it’s a cure for old age. The actual smaller print content of this ad is all over the place and makes a bunch of other extreme claims.

A Dr. Al Sears is mentioned in the ad as a “world famous stem cell pioneer”.

Well, I’m not familiar with him, but you can read much more about him from a Google search. For instance,  check out a skeptic’s view (this from Dr. Harriet A. Hall) of his offerings here. Hall’s perspective on some past marketing seems to fit remarkably well with the recent stem cell-related ad in the U-T.

By the way, for background, the interstitium is a fluid-filled connective tissue space between different tissues and organs. It got oversold in my view as a new organ. It’s been known probably for centuries.

Unfortunately, the purveyors of questionable stem cell products are paying attention too and are advertising their dubious offerings like crazy these days. Sometimes they use and twist published science for their own advertising purposes.

The U-T ad reminds of the stem cell clinic ads that we see so often in mainstream media including The Sacramento Bee, but also on the web. The media outlets running these ads are doing so because they need revenue, but in that way in my view they are doing a potential disservice to the communities they serve.

So what else does the new U-T ad say?

It’s like different types of science and medicine along with certain buzz words got put in a blender and then poured out onto the page. The ad is lengthy and says a lot, but things don’t seem clear or tied together.

For instance, I don’t see how the interstitium has much to do with stem cells. I certainly wouldn’t call the interstitium a “stem cell organ.”

I also don’t see how this product has anything to do with New York School of Medicine, Stanford, or Harvard. It seems to me like a case of attempted prestige-by-association as though these top institutions somehow are behind the product.

Also, does Dr. Sears really have more than 500 scientific papers, as is claimed? If so, how are “scientific papers” defined? Peer-reviewed?

Then Dr. Oz is mentioned in the ad and also Suzanne Somers, who both have been associated with unproven alternative medicine. Ms. Somers has made a big deal out of the supposed power of stem cells as well. Note that more recently Dr. Oz has taken on stem cell clinics in a positive way.

Then aging NFL star Joe Namath is also mentioned in the ad. This Google search shows that Namath is really into alternative medicine kind of stuff lately.

I cannot imagine what’s actually in Primal X Plus being pitched in the ad, but in my view it’s unlikely to have much to do with stem cells or be helpful to people.

I wonder how much it costs.

Despite many mentions of “Clinical results” in the ad do these have anything to do with Primal X Plus?

I hope that readers of the U-T who saw the ad would not be taken in by the claims in it. However, some vulnerable people are likely to give it a try.

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